The Personal Lives of Leftists, does it matter?

For the leftist community around the world it is hard to always defend the actions of many of the men and women who helped shape the mold for socialism and communism. While some of the "founding" philosophers lived rather tame existences, I'm thinking of Kropotkin for one, many lived lives that mainstream ethics would look at as immoral. While it may seem silly to look at the lives philosophers who wanted to change, disrupt, or dismantle the status quo, it is important, in my opinion, to look at the personal mistakes of those we ideologically look up to critically.

Looking at Marx, one sees a brilliant theorist who helped define the struggles of the industrial and post-industrial age who nevertheless lived a life of near-Randian "mooching". While he did make some of his living off of his journalism, he ultimately depended on Engels for financial support. And to top it off, he was a known bar brawler and allegedly had a child by his housekeeper. 

Next Althusser, another brilliant theorist who suffered from psychological problems and ended up strangling his own wife. Then we have to contend with: Sartre's sexism, Bakunin's anti-semitism, and not to mention the extramarital affairs of Lenin, Trotsky, and Guevara.

But does it ultimately matter? While the historical leaders of the Left have had their flaws, historical leaders from all political stripes have had their share of problems: Churchill's imperialistic racism (referring to Gandhi as a "half-naked fakir"), Gandhi's tumultuous relationship with his son, Thomas Jefferson's affair with Sally Hemmings, etc. But how must us on the Left react to the flaws of our historical leaders? Simple: separate the people from their ideals. Though they may have been hypocrites or had their problem vices, it is important for us to look at these flaws, learn from them, and move on. It is not our job to defend the personal legacies of these philosophers, they were imperfect as all humans are, and we thus must be committed to changing the world instead of interpreting it by learning from their mistakes.